The root of conservatism

14 November 2016

At the Edmund Burke Award Ceremony in London, ACRE Secretary-General Daniel Hannan described conservatism as rooted in love.

In his speech at the ceremony of the Edmund Burke Award 2016, ACRE Secretary-General Daniel Hannan MEP described conservatism as rooted not in grievance, but in love for our heritage, laws, and families.

He said:

Other ideologies – whether socialism or fascism – are very often based on discontent, on a sense of grievance and anger at the world. But it would be as unthinkable for a conservative to take a butcher’s cleaver to a painting by an old master as it would be to deface a constitution, because conservatism is rooted not in grievance, but in love: love for our heritage, for our institutions, for our laws, for our families, and for our nations. […]

The man who taught us to love in this sense was the original patriarch of conservatism, Edmund Burke. It was he who proclaimed the superiority of the natural, of the evolved, of the organic over the planned, the rationalist, the imposed. It is very appropriate that we should name our prize after the first and greatest conservative.

ACRE presented the Edmund Burke Award 2016 to the Hon John Howard OM AC, in recognition of a lifetime’s achievement.

Every year, ACRE gives this award to the politician who has done the most to advance conservative principles globally. The winner of the Edmund Burke Award 2015 was Senator Jim DeMint, the leader of the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC.

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